Ricky Fortino

Name: Ricky Fortino

Gender: Male

Age: 17 (Birthday: October 3)

Grade: 12

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Audio-Visual Work, Soccer and Football (sparingly), partying and hanging out with friends

Appearance: Ricky Fortino is completely average in the height and weight department, standing 5'9" and weighing in at about 165 pounds. He's got some definition in his arms and shoulders, but he has a bit of a paunch thanks to lots of Italian cooking and shows the physique of someone who works out irregularly and does so more for cosmetic purposes than anything else. Although he's a bit of a babyface, Ricky was blessed with natural good looks: deep brown eyes, smooth facial features, and white teeth. His hair is a dark brown color that's sets him apart from the rest of his Italian family, the vast majority of which sport the jet-black locks more commonly associated with his heritage. He generally keeps it shaggy and medium-length, so that it's always falling into his eyes and past his ears.

While playing sports, Ricky generally ties his hair back with a bandana in the colors of the Italian flag. He usually keeps his dress ultra-casual, wearing slightly baggy jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies or loose-fitting shirts overtop, although he'll dress more stylishly if the situation calls for it. His left ear is pierced with a genuine diamond that was a gift for his 18th birthday.

Biography: Ricky was considered a pleasant surprise to his parents, as they'd had three girls before him and had just about given hope of having a son. His sisters, all of whom are at least seven years older than him, have since grown up, left the house, and married blue-collar Italian males while never having to work anything other than token jobs. His father was especially proud to have a boy that would carry on the Fortino lineage for him.

Ricky's father is a first-generation Italian-American who came to the U.S. as a child from the Campania region of Italy and now works as a union representative for one of St. Paul's largest manufacturing companies, a job that's become more stressful in time with the recent decline in the American manufacturing industry, as companies continue to look to downsize, cut bloated costs, and shift employment overseas. His mother is a second-generation American who briefly worked as a receptionist at the plant before marrying, after which she settled into the expected life as a homemaker, continuing the tradition of the Fortino family that the men are meant to provide for the women. His family is very traditionally Italian, with a large extended family including relatives in the Old Country, several of which have some distant but unsavory ties to the Camorra. Ricky's made several trips with family to Naples and its surrounding area, including the last one two years ago where he spent several days hanging out with his distant cousins, who sometimes work as extremely low-level cronies to the more powerful mob bosses of the area.

Going through his school years, Ricky achieved rather unspectacular marks that put him solidly in the bottom half of the grade curve. He was never in danger of flunking out, although he has had to suffer through a summer school course or two in his lifetime. He and his family took all this in stride, having a natural dislike of the stuffy "academic" world, and assuming that Ricky would eventually learn a trade or get a job at his father's plant in the future, marry a nice Italian girl from another local family, and start producing little Fortinos of his own. There was never any expectation for college or higher education beyond vocational training.

Entering and continuing high school, Ricky has always been automatically part of the popular group. He was good-looking, from a well-known family, played on all the sports teams, and was willing to party his brains out and go along with whatever the leaders of the group suggested. This has lead to views of him as a bit of a sycophant and lackey, but Ricky never seemed to have a problem with those labels as long as the rest of his group didn't. Besides, he figured it was the geeks and outcasts that called him that, and it's not like any Ricky's group ever cared what they thought. He quickly joined up with the school's junior football and soccer teams, although he struggled to establish himself as a player and never seemed quite interested in working to become a star.

Ricky's also picked up a reputation of being someone who plays the field, but none of his relationships have achieved any level of success. The girls he's dated generally find him uncommunicative and disinterested, which lead to the impression that he's only looking for a score, and Ricky doesn’t have the charisma to pull that off. Anytime a new relationship goes under, his fellow jocks and buddies josh him on this, to which he always smiles and shrugs his shoulders in an "eh, whatcha gonna do?" fashion.

In the last couple years, Ricky has shown some signs of trying to move away from his status as a jock and bully. In his junior year, he quit taking part in the school's industrial and shop classes, declaring that he's "not gonna spend the rest of my life as a goddamn plumber". He started taking more traditional classes, although his grades haven't really improved as a result. He also joined the school's Audio-Visual Club, working on setting up staging and lighting for the Drama Club's productions, "even if the stuff they put on is fucking stupid and queer sometimes." He's shown quite a knack for the technical aspects of production, although his sullen personality rubs a lot of his fellow members the wrong way.

Now in his senior year, Ricky continues to play a part on the school's soccer and football teams, but as a second-string midfielder and mediocre defensive back, he finds himself on the bench or playing special teams more often than not, a position he seems fine with. Ricky's mulling around potential options once school is finished, looking at possibly applying to local community colleges and pursuing a career in police work (one of his brothers-in-law is a cop), or finding some sort of training to get an internship in the local production workers union. His parents are happy to see their son progressing as he should, and have enough connections and friends around town to get him into most of these industries, as long as it's none of that fancy academic crap.

Advantages: Ricky's popular, good-looking, and in decent enough if not spectacular shape. Very few people would see him as any sort of threat to them. As someone who doesn't set himself apart from the field, Ricky would also be able to remove himself from situations that might get hostile, and he’s not one to panic or overthink matters, instead taking situations as they come. In his last trip to Italy, Ricky's cousins let him cart around one of their guns and fire off a few rounds, so he knows the absolute basics of using firearms.

Disadvantages: Ricky's got lots of friends, but he's got very few close ones, and those he hangs around with in the popular crowd often see him as little more than a hanger-on. He's also been known as a bully to the most obvious of the school's "rejects", although he doesn't usually set himself as being particularly sadistic. As well, Ricky's not outright stupid, but he's not exactly smart either, and he doesn't have much initiative or creative ability. His sullen and insecure nature might make it difficult for him to survive against students with more will to win than he does.

Designated Number: Male Student no. 006

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Designated Weapon: Trowel

Conclusion HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA well boy 006, best be digging your grave now! Maybe you'll make 5 inches before someone kills you!

'The above biography is as written by D/N. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: D/N, SOTF_Help

Kills: Isaiah Garvey

Killed By: Remained in a danger zone.

Collected Weapons: Trowel (Assigned Weapon)

Allies: None

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Ricky, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * Azzurri Pride

'Pre-Game:
 * Murder at Macy's
 * Just passing the Time...
 * High Gloss Highs
 * Decisions, Decisions
 * The In Crowd

V4:
 * Accidental Acrophobia
 * Watch Your Step
 * Follow Them Size Fives
 * Cleanliness and Loneliness
 * Aimless
 * A Day at the Beach
 * Anthem for Doomed Youth

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Ricky Fortino. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * The most outstanding thing about Ricky is definitely his voice. All of D/N's characters had strong voices, but I feel that Ricky and Andrea were the most distinct. Ricky was a joy to read because of this, even at the times when he wasn't doing a lot. This was a good thing, because he had a lot of moments without much happening. When stuff did happen, it usually came in short, isolated bursts. Ricky had the opposite problem of most of V4. While they clumped up into static groups, Ricky wandered from place to place and thread to thread in search of a plot or some companions. His end is also a bit rough, in large part due to some misunderstandings. I do think Ricky's worth reading some of, though, just to get a feel for how a handler can convey a ton of character just through voice/narrative. - MurderWeasel